Government urged to charm home departed talent

The Federal Government must come to grips with the increasing number of highly skilled Australians being lost to the world's major cities or risk permanently losing the talent, according to a report to be released today.

The report, which looks at the number of Australians, those born in the country and settlers, who have left for overseas, says there is unprecedented competition among countries to attract talent, and globalisation has changed the way Australians view the labour market.

Skilled professionals, looking for power bases in their industries, were eyeing New York, London and Tokyo as first choice over Australia's largest cities.

The Committee for Economic Development of Australia report, which surveys 2072 people, says that while there was not a "net brain drain", because of the talents of immigrants settling in Australia, there was an "urgent need" for the Federal Government to develop policies to establish links with expatriates and encourage their return.

"Labour markets have become more competitive, countries and organisations are looking internationally for people rather than, as in the past, their own backyard to recruit them," report author Graeme Hugo said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs could provide only a recent (2001) estimate of the numbers of overseas Australians - 860,000 permanent or long-term travellers and 265,000 others who were overseas less than 12 months.

Professor Hugo, a University of Adelaide academic, said the Australian-born citizens who had left the country permanently had increased by 146 per cent from 9803 in 1992-93 to 24,146 in 2001-2002, with Britain, America and New Zealand the most popular destinations.

Long-term departures - defined as one year or more - jumped 40 per cent from 65,446 to 92,071 in the same period.

Asia is increasingly attractive, particularly among older Australians (35-64 years old), with permanent and long-term travellers increasing by more than 50 per cent from 20,442 in 1997-98 to 31,417 in 2001-02.

There had been a marked change in emigration in the past decade, with Australian-born permanent leavers now more significant than settlers who returned to their homelands. In the 1991 financial year, settlers returning home were 69.5 per cent of permanent departures; by 2002 this had fallen to 49.9 per cent. Australian-born leavers have risen from 31.5 per cent to 50.1 per cent.

"We have always tended to have a fairly significant out movement. In the past the dominant group has been migrants going back to their home country, but now by far the most significant group are the Australian-born," Professor Hugo said.